Hi, I'm new to Adobe Premiere, and want to make an opening-iris transition with feathered (extremely soft) edges, adjusted interactively. That is, not something that looks like a camera iris, but rather a plain portal opening progressively wider from one clip transitioning to another. The given Iris Transition in Premiere has several settings but appears not to have any setting for feathering/softness, (other than anti-alias, which is nowhere near as soft as I need). I'm looking for e.g. feathering over 50-100 pixels radius and interactive adjustment of centre position.

I like Premiere, but this is one of its huge drawbacks. You say it's more like an effect build for After Effects. Both Vegas and Edius have a circle iris with feather, as well as a wipe with feather, two transitions that are used in Hollywood movies, the feathered iris especially by Scorsese, and Lucas has used the feathered wipe in Star Wars. I don't understand why a suposedly pro NLE doesn't bring these out of the box instead of relying on AE or 3rd party packages for them.

That may be so, but it's absolutely ridiculous that for such a simple transition you have to move clip A to an upper track, the audio from clip A to a lower audio track, then bring clip B to the left as many seconds as you want the transition, and then keyframe a video effect that is supposed to be a transition.

... two transitions that are used in Hollywood movies, the feathered iris especially by Scorsese, and Lucas has used the feathered wipe in Star Wars. I don't understand why a suposedly pro NLE doesn't bring these out of the box instead of relying on AE or 3rd party packages for them.

I will guarantee that the effects in those movies were not done in an "NLE". The pros will tend to use a compositing application..ut in the case of the movies quoted...probably an optical effect. (which takes a lot longer and is more involved than the solution offered byAnn Bens)

FWIW. Adobe seems very reluctant to offer much in the way of "feathering" in Premiere. Their rational seems to be...you have got After Effects to that. Same cant be said for Vegas or Edius so they have to offer different solutions

"The Departed" from 2006 was most likely edited in an NLE. His older movies may have been optical effects. As for Star Wars, episodes I, II and III were also probably edited in an NLE since the first one is from 1999.

If Adobe's rational for not offering feather in Premiere is to move to AE for a simple transition it's going to cost them a lot of customers. Why would I switch to Premiere when for something so simple I have to open a layer compositing program, when in Edius I can simply drag the transition to the edit point, the same way I would drag a transition in Premiere? It's just ridiculous. I'm sure this statement is going to earn me a lot of replies like "If you like Edius so much, why don't you stay with it?", but just think about it. Adobe wants to position this NLE as the best thing out there for editors, yet they fail to provide a simple feathered linear or circle wipe? Come on.